Voter ID required for Texas elections

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BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS (KVEO NEWSCENTER 23) — Gone are the days when it was simply enough for Texans to cast their votes on the ballots with a simple registration card. Now, state law requires this, plus some sort of ID for the citizens' votes to actually count.

"For now, we just operate, this is the law and we've gotta follow it and figure out how to practically apply it here in the community," said Cameron County Elections Administrator, Christopher Davis.

Davis mentioned the Secretary of State's regulations for Texans who do not have an ID, but want to be eligible to vote.

"They pretty much went over the procedures of this, the curing period for somebody who doesn't have an ID, what they need to do and how long they have to come into our office to cure their provisional ballot so it will be counted at the end of election, um, those kind of items were discussed," said Davis.

While the election identification certificate is free of charge, many citizens have yet to obtain one.

"Although the Texas voter ID law was put into effect over a month ago, the number of people who've actually applied and received an election identification certificate are few and far between."

"From our information, what the Secretary of State's office and the DPS office says, not a- there've been some inquiries as into the DPS office as what it takes to obtain one, uh, the local offices in the county haven't issued any cards yet. Uh, it's our understanding that in the region, only one has been issued somewhere around Alice in this particular DPS region and only a handful of them have been issued statewide," said Davis.

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